Hillary Clinton 2012, Part II – It’s The Economy, Stupid!

America is placing a 911 call to Hillary Clinton. We know it’s time to sober up. It’s time to put away the Hopium, the wine and the roses. It’s time for Americans to send Obama cartons of cigarettes – he’s fired up and ready to go – go away.

As we noted yesterday, Hillary Clinton understands the disaster of record U.S. budget deficits – which lead to bigger U.S. debt – which lead to bigger interest payments. To Hillary this deficit and debt are “a matter of national security” not just economics. To Hillary Clinton the financial irresponsibility and the increased reliance for Hopium dollars from nations like China are a danger and “The moment of reckoning cannot be put off forever.”

The Tea Party movement, once derided by Dimocrats, is now seen as a powerful force – even by delusional Dimocrats like Nancy Pelosi. What fuels the Tea Party movement, is what fueled the 1990s Ross Perot movement – fiscal irresponsibility by the U.S. government. Bill Clinton seized that moment (his last four budgets were in balance or in surplus) and made the Democratic Party the party of fiscal responsibility. Now Hillary Clinton is poised to do the exact same seize-fortune-by-the-forelock moment.

Republicans under George W. Bush were fiscal madmen. Barack Obama’s Dimocratic Party Obamination is likewise a party of crazed spenders. Hillary Clinton’s focus on the need to “turn the clock back” is the way to the future. Hillary Clinton, in last week’s critique of “this deficit and debt”, is saying “It’s The Economy, Stupid!”

In 2012 no political party will be able to run with the promise of new programs or new spending proposals. There is simply no money left. When interest rates begin to rise significantly, as they surely will having already started to slightly rise, interest payments on the debt will balloon and make that part of the budget a cancer that feeds on the nation. Dimocrats will not only be deprived of a promise based election but they will also be deprived of a “stay the course, we are competent” election run.

The fire next time will not be promises of new programs or new spending proposals but of change back to competence and experience and vision. The fire next time will be fiscal sanity, paying the bills, the American economy, and jobs, jobs, jobs.

Hillary Clinton is fiscally responsible but that does not mean what must be done won’t be done. Hillary fights. When the health care legislation failed to pass in the 1990s, Hillary Clinton did not give up. Hillary continued to work on health care issues and legislation was passed which provided health care to children. Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama attacked Hillary. In 2008 the Chappaquiddick Chauffeur tried to drive Hillary off the bridge with lies. Here’s Fact Check:

“One of Clinton’s signature claims has come under fire from political foes, quoted by the Boston Globe, who say she doesn’t deserve credit for expanding federal health insurance for millions of children.

We review the record and conclude that she deserves plenty of credit, both for the passage of the SCHIP legislation and for pushing outreach efforts to translate the law into reality. [snip]

The newspaper also said that “privately, some lawmakers and staff members are fuming” over Clinton’s claim but didn’t name any of them. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who cosponsored the 1997 legislation that eventually led to the creation of SCHIP, was asked whether Clinton was exaggerating her role. The Globe said he wouldn’t criticize Clinton “directly” but said: “Facts are stubborn things … I think we ought to stay with the facts.”

Kennedy, of course, is now backing Clinton’s rival, Barack Obama, for the nomination. But last year, before that endorsement, he was quoted by the Associated Press as saying something quite different, which the Globe did not note in its story:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Oct. 6, 2007: The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

In that same story, The AP’s Beth Fouhy concluded, “While Kennedy is widely viewed as the driving force behind the program, by all accounts the former first lady’s pressure was crucial.” She quoted Nick Littlefield, who had been a senior health adviser to Kennedy, as saying, “we relied on her, worked with her and she was pivotal in encouraging the White House to do it.”

The AP’s assessment is backed up by others we consulted. [snip]

One of the co-authors of the plan, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, credited Mrs. Clinton for her “invaluable help, both in the fashioning and the shaping of the program.”

Years later, when Clinton was first running for the Senate, Kennedy’s aide Littlefield was still giving her credit. The New York Times quoted him as saying, ”She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done.” [snip]

Moreover, Hillary Clinton took a major role in translating the new law into action. [snip]

Our conclusion: Clinton is right on this one.”

Hillary Clinton fights to do what is necessary. This does not mean Hillary will be fiscally irresponsible. Hillary will get the job done and the job is jobs. Hillary Clinton doesn’t get the job done with wistful wishing and dreaming. Barack Obama must go, and Hillary Clinton has to answer the 911 call from the American people.

It’s The Economy (and Jobs), Stupid!

Hillary has a history of fighting to invest precious taxpayer dollars wisely. Yet, Hillary Clinton knows the job of the president must be to create jobs and to get the engine of American power, the economy, back to sanity. Her non-candidate message is, “It breaks my heart that 10 years ago we had a balanced budget, that we were on the way of paying down the debt of the United States of America.”

Fiscal sanity versus fiscal madness will be what elections for the foreseeable future will be fought over. The pompous Obama endorser Dan Gerstein gets some things right today:

The Democrats considered the $787 billion recovery package not just an essential step for saving the economy from depression, but also a first strike in White House’s “big bang” strategy. It would, by their way of thinking, build political momentum for a range of other major Obama agenda items like climate change. But for much of the public, the poorly conceived and marketed stimulus plan was the last straw in the unsettling explosion of government and debt that began with the bipartisan bailout bonanza in the waning days of the Bush administration.

Ever since that dividing line was crossed, the Democrats have seemed to be operating in a hermetically sealed political vacuum, impervious to the public’s changing post-crash priorities and diminishing tolerance for big government solutions. The complex, sector-remaking cap-and-trade bill is a perfect example. That plan may have been a tough but closeable sell in a stable economy, given the short-term sacrifices we would have to make to secure the long-term rewards. But it was a dead letter in a near-depressed economy with a mistrustful electorate prone to believe the most damning attacks about higher taxes and lost jobs. Yet the Democrats plowed ahead with a bill in the House and only stopped when Senate moderates bolted.

That was nothing, though, compared to the multi-pronged Democratic disconnect on health care. It was clear early on that the public wanted the president and Congress to focus on the economy, especially after the evidence mounted that the stimulus, whatever its disaster-preventing benefits, was not going to spur job growth any time soon. Yet the Democrats went ahead and devoted most of the last year to health care reform, which only reinforced the growing perception that Washington was still as arrogant and unresponsive as ever and that the Democrats, like their predecessors, were still out for themselves and their political aims.

It’s the economy, but Obama and his Dimocrats think it’s about Mess-iah’s diminishing cult of personality and the acolyte Dimocrats. But it’s about the economy and the voters. The damage Obama and his Dimocrats do now will last for “years to come” if not generations to come.

Most voters are impressionistic, especially independents and moderates of both parties. They look at the whole of what you have done and the how of what you have done. If Democrats ram through an unpopular trillion-dollar health care bill in this climate, with Congress’ approval rating at 15%, they may well cement their image as the worst of Washington and sever their claim on the public’s trust for years to come. Even if ObamaCare delivers over time–and if it avoids the substantial premium increases that the Massachusetts universal care system has produced–it most likely will be too little too late.

Again, consider the context. Trust in government–which has been trending substantially downward since the crash of 2008–is in tipping-point territory right now. A recent New York Times poll showed that 70% of Americans are angry or dissatisfied with how Washington is handling the people’s business; 80% said that members of Congress are more interested in pandering to special interest groups than in serving the needs of people who elected them; and 81% said members of Congress across the board deserve to be thrown out. A new CNN poll out this week goes a step further and shows that 56% of Americans now think the federal government poses a threat to their rights, with even 37% of Democrats sharing that view.

Those numbers beg the question: Would the Democrats actually be better off if their comprehensive health care bill does not pass? I tend to think so, though as I argued last week, the best course for Democrats would be to skip the all-or-nothing trap and pass a center-out bill that contains the 80% of insurance reforms on which both sides already agree. But that’s a moot point: The Democrats are going for broke (in more ways than one). The more salient question is when will the Democrats start connecting the dots–and recognize that the American people are not going to accept a government that is not willing to heed their doubts.

What happened to “jobs, jobs, jobs”? The High Church of Barack Obama, the New York Times is scratching it’s head:

By the time March arrived, President Obama was supposed to be entering his third month of the year talking about three things: jobs, jobs, jobs.

That was the plan of the White House — and the plea from many Democrats — as the unemployment rate remained frozen near 10 percent and the economy showed only hints of brightening. The administration created a “White House to Main Street” tour, giving Mr. Obama a forum to see and feel America’s pain, and offer his plan for relief.

So whatever happened to that shift from health care to the economy?

Have a cigarette, Barack. Eat some greasy food, Barack.

Democrats on midterm election ballots feel a growing sense of worry that the year is quickly ticking away. If the next chapter of the health care debate consumes the month of March, will there be time to pursue other legislation before campaigning begins in earnest?

The trip was Mr. Obama’s first to Georgia since campaigning against Hillary Rodham Clinton nearly two years ago in the presidential race. He was greeted by an editorial in The Savannah Morning News, with a headline declaring: “Welcome Mr. President: It’s about jobs.”

With Barack Obama it’s always words, words, words and now the words are “jobs, jobs, jobs”. But Obama’s words do not match Obama’s actions.

“When it comes to domestic policy, I have no more important job as president than seeing to it that every American who wants to work, and is able to work, can find a job, and a job that pays a living wage,” Mr. Obama said. “That was my focus last year, and that is my focus this year.”

If we take Obama’s word that “jobs’ was last year’s “focus” and this years “focus”, the conclusion must be that a focused Obama is still not getting the “job” done. Where are the jobs? Today Obama will try again to force through the massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to a system that is acknowledged by most to be broken. Obama says he is focused on “jobs” but in reality is focus is on bringing more people into a system that is broken and forcing taxpayers to pay for the punishment.

He intended to move forward whether they joined him or not, aides said, so the White House could return to its originally scheduled message of jobs, jobs, jobs.

Where are the jobs?

* * * * * *

Where’s the economy?

Judd Gregg, the Republican Barack Obama wanted for Commerce Secretary, was interviewed recently by Ed Luce (the reporter who recently rocked Washington with a “blame the staff” article on Barack Obama’s collapsing White House) believes the U.S. is near a “financial meltdown”:

“The US is heading for a debt-driven “financial meltdown” within five to seven years, according to Judd Gregg, the outgoing Republican senator for New Hampshire. [snip]

“We have had China say that they are looking for other places to put their reserves and that is probably a smart decision on their part,” said Mr Gregg, who will not seek re-election in November. “So the warning signs are pretty clear and the path is unsustainable and, at this point, unless we take different actions, unavoidable.”

But the senator, who was the most high-profile Repub­lican invited by Barack Obama, the president, to join his administration last year, an offer Mr Gregg accepted and then turned down, said he doubted that the two parties would get together to tackle it.”

Thus far, Gregg is right that the two parties are unable or unwilling to tackle the problems the American economy faces. The American economy has 8 million manufacturing jobs and an economy with 150 million workers. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

“The Great Recession may be over, but this era of high joblessness is probably just beginning. Before it ends, it will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar men. It could cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a despair not seen for decades. Ultimately, it is likely to warp our politics, our culture, and the character of our society for years to come.

In 2012, the Republicans will blame Barack Obama and his self-alleged “focus on jobs” failed policies for continued joblessness. At best Barack Obama will be able to respond “I am a boob” in his own defense. The defense will be valid, but the situation will be dire.

According to the liberal Atlantic magazine, even by 2014 unemployment will only decline “a little”; average duration of unemployment last year surpassed six months; the jobless and those that have given up looking for work reached 17.4% in October; teenager unemployment reached 27%; unemployment “may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades.”

Whatever alleged benefits of the Obama stimulus scam, they have come and gone (according to Obama’s economic adviser chair Christina Romer, the Federal Reserve, and Goldman Sachs). “The economy now sits in a hole more than 10 million jobs deep—that’s the number required to get back to 5 percent unemployment, the rate we had before the recession started, and one that’s been more or less typical for a generation.” Due to population growth the economy must produce about 1.5 million new jobs a year “just to keep from sinking deeper.”

“Even if the economy were to immediately begin producing 600,000 jobs a month—more than double the pace of the mid-to-late 1990s, when job growth was strong—it would take roughly two years to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re in. [snip]

The construction and finance industries, bloated by a decade-long housing bubble, are unlikely to regain their former share of the economy, and as a result many out-of-work finance professionals and construction workers won’t be able to simply pick up where they left off when growth returns—they’ll need to retrain and find new careers. (For different reasons, the same might be said of many media professionals and auto workers.)”

The bad news is long and ugly. For the Barack Obama addled young, a large chunk of that demographic, the bad news is “fun”. Stories of “funemployment” abound among the Hopium guzzler Obama young.

Many of today’s young adults seem temperamentally unprepared for the circumstances in which they now find themselves. Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has carefully compared the attitudes of today’s young adults to those of previous generations when they were the same age. Using national survey data, she’s found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for work’s sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher material expectations than previous generations, and believe financial success is extremely important. “There’s this idea that, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to work, but I’m still going to get all the stuff I want,’” Twenge told me. “It’s a generation in which every kid has been told, ‘You can be anything you want. You’re special.’”

Barack youth will have a rude wake up call. Many African-Americans will have a tough time too. The Atlantic relates these facts:

“In June 1999, the journalist Ellis Cose wrote in Newsweek that it was then “the best time ever” to be black in America. He ticked through the reasons: employment was up, murders and out-of-wedlock births down; educational attainment was rising, and poverty less common than at any time since 1967. Middle-class black couples were slowly returning to gentrifying inner-city neighborhoods. “Even for some of the most persistently unfortunate—uneducated black men between 16 and 24—jobs are opening up,” Cose wrote.”

“The best time ever to be black in America” was when “racist” Bill Clinton was in the White House. Another tough wake up call. In the age of Mess-iah Obama the White House is a bleak house:

“But many of those gains are now imperiled. Late last year, unemployment among black teens ages 16 to 19 was nearly 50 percent, and the unemployment rate for black men age 20 or older was almost 17 percent. With so few jobs available, Wilson told me, “many black males will give up and drop out of the labor market, and turn more to the underground economy. And it will be very difficult for these people”—especially those who acquire criminal records—“to reenter the labor market in any significant way.” Glen Elder, the sociologist at the University of North Carolina, who’s done field work in Baltimore, said, “At a lower level of skill, if you lose a job and don’t have fathers or brothers with jobs—if you don’t have a good social network—you get drawn back into the street. There’s a sense in the kids I’ve studied that they lost everything they had, and can’t get it back.

In New York City, 18 percent of low-income blacks and 26 percent of low-income Hispanics reported having lost their job as a result of the recession in a July survey by the Community Service Society. More still had had their hours or wages reduced. About one in seven low-income New Yorkers often skipped meals in 2009 to save money, and one in five had had the gas, electricity, or telephone turned off. Wilson argues that once neighborhoods become socially dysfunctional, it takes a long period of unbroken good times to undo the damage—and they can backslide very quickly and steeply. “One problem that has plagued the black community over the years is resignation,” Wilson said—a self-defeating “set of beliefs about what to expect from life and how to respond,” passed from parent to child. “And I think there was sort of a feeling that norms of resignation would weaken somewhat with the Obama election. But these hard economic times could reinforce some of these norms.”

A year ago, in “Who Obama Hurts Most” we wrote Obama would most hurt those who voted for him – his own deluded supporters. Those deluded supporters are the one now most in need of – Hillary Clinton.

We never worshiped Hillary Clinton. We don’t drink Hopium, even if it is Pink. It was never about Hillary. It is about us, the American people.

The American people in 2012 will dial 911. Hillary Clinton must answer. She’s our only hope.

I am reposting this article here because of the comments he is making about Hillary…

—————
JanH
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Gov Met With Laughter, Boos During Talk On Ethics In Politics

03-3-10

The initial reaction to the news of Rod Blagojevich giving a speech on ethics in politics to Northwestern University students was shock. Him? Really? The tone did not change much at Tuesday night’s event, where the indicted ex governor of Illinois was met with both laughter and boos.

The irony of inviting Rod Blagojevich to speak on ethics in politics did not escape Amanda Litman, sophomore at Blago’s alma mater, Northwestern University. “I’ll try to fact check what he says as he talks,” she said, her lap top perched on her knee.

About 1,000 people packed the Northwestern auditorium to hear Blago speak. He was stunningly entertaining, and kept the audience laughing – both with him and at his antics.

Blagojevich told the crowd that the FBI subpoenaed his grades and student information from when he attended 30 years ago and joked about his mediocre academic record:

“If they look at those grades they’ll see — I obviously never cheated on an exam,” he said.

The audience did not let the former governor get away with much. Gasps and laughter erupted when he claimed President Obama made a deal with Hillary Clinton while they were campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination.

“In exchange for her getting out of the race, he agrees to make her secretary of state,” he claimed. “Now Hillary Clinton is qualified, but she’s not exactly Henry Kissinger.”

When pressed about his appointment of Roland Burris, he said “my fellow Democrat and your senator Dick Durbin – and Harry Reid – are keeping [Burris] out of the US Senate like they were some segregationist governors from Mississippi,” drawing the conclusion that he appointed the African-American senator as a matter of conscience. The accusation drew loud boos from the audience and one man shouted “Shame!”

“You don’t like Burris?” Blagojevich asked.

“No–you.”

The governor repeated his plea for prosecutors in his case to “play all the tapes,” referring to the wiretapped conversations that led to his arrest and indictment–and maintained his innocence.

“I am the Anti-Nixon!” Blago proclaimed. “Nixon did everything he could to block those tapes from being heard. I’m the opposite – play the tapes they will prove me innocent.”

When asked by one student why he has gone on a media “circus” tour, including his stint on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice,” Blago gave one of the most sincere responses of the night.

He told the crowd isn’t happy about having to portray an idiot on any program that will have him, but it’s the only way he can pay the bills.

“It’s just a horrible, horrible thing,” he said. “But this is a life lesson for our children.”

Students left the event with mixed feelings and organizers felt the event was a successful.

“Obviously Rod Blagojevich has a reputation as sort of a disgraced figure,” said Dan Rockoff, Vice President of Programming for the College Democrats. “But from our point of view we didn’t need to bring a white knight to campus to have a discussion about this topic. This [discussion] was not a judge trial and jury.”

Blagojevich is scheduled to go to trial on corruption charges in June.

“A simple truth lies in plain view, like Poe’s purloined letter, across these two tomes. To wit, let’s not assume it’s the national electorate that’s so unready for a female president. A fired-up Clinton was catching on pretty good toward the end, winning major primaries in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Texas. But the upper echelons of the political establishment, which she had reason to believe were on her side, had other ideas. “They” decided she was too divisive, even as she competed well in the field.

To a man, many of Clinton’s friends and allies in the Senate reached out to the talented but untested freshman senator from Illinois, urging Barack Obama to run for president. Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York was one of these; so was Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. Highly respected Tom Daschle, a former majority leader, urged Obama to seize the moment and promised to advise him. For the most part, these conversations were held in private in “a conspiracy of whispers,” as Heilemann and Halperin put it. When the late Sen. Edward Kennedy went public with a full-throated roar of endorsement, then the extent of Obama’s support by the clubby Senate Democrats became clear.

For Obama, that was almost as sweet as winning the Iowa caucuses. But for Clinton, it was finding out that “friends” can make the most insidious foes of all.”

According to several House aides – on both sides of the aisle – the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer.

Massa told POLITICO early Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him.

According to several House aides – on both sides of the aisle – the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer.

Massa told POLITICO early Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him.

Massa has suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. On a conference call with reporters Wednesday afternoon, he said he was hospitalized in December and that his doctors made it clear to him that he can’t continue to “run at about 100 miles an hour.”

He denied that he was retiring because of a sexual harassment claim.

“Do I or have I ever used salty language when I’m angry, especially in the privacy of my inner office or even at home? Yes, I have, and I have apologized to those where it’s appropriate,” Massa said. “But those kinds of articles, unsubstantiated without fact or backing, are a symptom of what’s wrong with this city.”

A 20-year Navy veteran, Massa was elected to office last November. He serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, and his departure endangers Democrats’ hold on his competitive upstate New York seat.

Massa’s decision came as a complete surprise to several of his freshman Democratic colleagues in the New York delegation. According to the New York Daily News, which first reported that Massa was retiring, the congressman called party leaders and supporters in his district Wednesday to tell them of his plans.

Massa has played a gadfly-like role in the House, calling for a single-payer health care system at a conference of liberal activists last year despite representing a Republican-leaning district. He was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against health care legislation; he said it didn’t do enough to control costs.

As a freshman representing New York’s most Republican House district, Massa was one of the most endangered Democrats in the delegation. Republicans had been aggressively targeting his seat and landed top recruit Tom Reed, the Republican mayor of Corning, to challenge him.

Massa is now the 15th House Democrat to announce retirement plans, with 11 of them leaving districts that Republicans are aggressively contesting. House Republicans face 19 retirements within GOP ranks, but most of their departing members hail from safe seats.

Massa’s departure also adds to the woes of New York Democrats, who have been on the defensive this week amid a scandal surrounding Gov. David Paterson, who announced he wasn’t running for election, and the tribulations involving embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who stepped down as chairman from the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday.

After spending months deriding the Tea Party movement as a refuge for extremists, anxious Democrats are now deciding that its anti-Washington sentiments may be to their taste after all.

By Alex Spillius in Washington
Published: 02 Mar 2010

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and the second most powerful figure in the party after President Barack Obama, is among those on the Left now seeking to find common ground with the conservative populism that is sweeping across the United States.

“We share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, DC – it just has to stop,” she told ABC News. “And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.”

Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that Democratic voters infuriated by the lack of health care reform, and by the no-strings attached Wall Street bailout, would vote for any candidate, Left or Right, who came across as convincingly anti-establishment.

In Scott Brown’s recent surprise Senate victory in Massachusetts, some of his support came from Obama voters, he said. “On the centre-Right, tea partiers, everybody knows about them,” he said on MSNBC. “On the centre-Left, they’re demoralised, they’re mad as they don’t think they got the change they asked for, so they stay home. I think this movement is more anti-incumbent than it is anti-Democrat or Republican.”

Democrats have watched in horror as the loose grassroots coalition of Tea Party groups has surged to prominence by advocating fiscal discipline, reducing the role of the federal government and opposing Mr Obama’s health care plans as financially ruinous.

The majority of Tea Partiers are Republican voters with conservative views on abortion and gay marriage, but some are newcomers to politics whom Democrats think they could attract in November’s mid-term elections, when the ruling party is in danger of losing its majority in Congress.

The rise of the Tea Party has inspired a liberal alternative, the Coffee Party, whose mission statement is “Wake Up and Stand Up”.

It was started on a Facebook page by Annabel Park, a documentary maker, who wants central government fixed rather than obliterated. But she shares the Tea Party’s disillusionment with Congress and desperation for a balanced budget.

In a matter of weeks the 40,000 members have signed up and she plans to hold the first Coffee Party rally in the summer.

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and the second most powerful figure in the party after President Barack Obama, is among those on the Left now seeking to find common ground with the conservative populism that is sweeping across the United States.

“We share some of the views of the Tea Partiers in terms of the role of special interest in Washington, DC – it just has to stop,” she told ABC News. “And that’s why I’ve fought the special interest, whether it’s on energy, whether it’s on health insurance, whether it’s on pharmaceuticals and the rest.”

——————————————————–

Nancy’s nose is going to grow even longer with all the lies she is telling. Who sponsered big fundraisers for her? Why, all the special interests of course. As usual, she is full of hooey.

JanH, the conservative websites Hotair and Legal Insurrection (below, with links at original story) have the Coffee Party story in toto. In short the organizer used to work at the NYTimes (which did an extensive profile of the founder and the group) and was/is an Obama organizer.

The New York Times and Washington Post are promoting a group called the “Coffee Party” organized by filmmaker Annabel Park.

The Coffee Party is a political parasite which presents itself as something it is not. As reported in the NY Times [see update below], Park presents herself as not hostile to the Tea Party movement, and in fact, hopes to bring some Tea Partiers into her group:

“We’re not the opposite of the Tea Party,” Ms. Park, 41, said. “We’re a different model of civic participation, but in the end we may want some of the same things.” ….

Ms. Park and chapter organizers said they would invite Tea Party members to join their Coffee counterparts in discussions. “We need to roll up our sleeves, put our heads together and work it out,” she said. “That’s, to me, an American way of doing this.”

In fact, a simple internet search (which the NY Times apparently is not capable of doing) reveals that Park organized the Coffee Party for the specific purpose of undermining the Tea Party movement.

Park is a former Strategy Analyst [Park’s Linked In page has been taken down, here is a cached link] at the NY Times who was one of organizers and operators of the United for Obama video channel at YouTube:

A Korean-American filmmaker is in charge of creating video clips that are playing a role in increasing support for Senator Barack Obama, the frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

“I found that people have little understanding of the change that Senator Barack Obama is advocating. I thought from my experience in using videos for civil movements that videos would be the best way to promote the need for change and for Obama. That’s why I decided to work for the Obama campaign,” Annabel Park said.

Joining the contest in December last year as chief of a promotional video team, Park has produced some 20 five-minute video clips which have generated a positive response. A clip interviewing actress Kelly Hu in support of the senator was viewed some 10,000 times, and a music video called “Oh Bama” [embed below, Park appears at 1:35]] drew wide attention. She has also produced Spanish-language videos to draw support from Hispanics.

The 40-year-old Park is leading an Obama promotional section on video-sharing site YouTube (www.youtube.com/unitedforobama) with around 10 other volunteers.

[snip]
It is very clear from Park’s background, and her own Tweets, that the Coffee Party simply is part of the perpetual Obama campaign, a means by which to subvert the real grassroots Tea Party movement by co-opting part of the message, but in a way which supports keeping Obama in power.

Much like a parasite which feeds off of and ultimately takes over the host.

Update: Interesting, I received a phone call from Kate Zernike, the author of the NY Times article, who felt that I did not sufficiently credit her article with disclosing Park’s background and motives. Specificially, Zernike pointed out that the Times’ article said the Coffee Party “was formed in reaction to the Tea Party” and offered “an alternative” to the Tea Party. Zernike also felt that the pro-Obama nature of the Coffee Party was adequately disclosed because the article pointed out that one of the organizers in California (not Park) had campaigned for Obama.

I explained that I did not feel that the NY Times article adequately disclosed (i) the depth of the connection to the Obama campaign reflected in Park’s background, or (ii) that the specific purpose of the Coffee Party, as expressed in Park’s Tweets, was to undermine the Tea Party.

I told Ms. Zernike that I would do an update to this post, and I hoped that she would do an update to her article to explain Park’s Obama connection and apparent motivations. Ms. Zernike declined, explaining that she had to limit her article to 700 words.

JanH, On the previous thread you posted an article about Brazile not wanting to put sanctions against Iran????What the heck is up with Brazile??? So Soros is up to his old tricks wanting to talk nice with the little dictator or what???
This article is weird and it comes at an unusual time after Soros said he was disappointed in Obama.

Admin: Any ideas on what the meeting between Hillary and Madeline Albright was all about??? I know she was one of Hillary’s major supporters for her Presidential run.

Jan H, it sounds like he’s going to try and run again. OMG, how will we as a nation survive if he was able to blackmail his way into another term. I really feel thats how he got the first term. Too many people turned their cheek so he could come in.

I listened to Romney today (shaking my head)(near vomiting)but I’d take him over the “one”.

Annabel Park was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to America with her family when she was nine years old. She studied philosophy at Boston University. Annabel’s life experiences include working with inner city children, management consulting, writing and directing theater, and combining new media and political activism. She was selected as a fellow for Film Independent’s Filmmaker Lab in 2005.She was the Director/Producer of 9500 Liberty, a documentary film on the impact of local immigration policies in Priince William County, Virginia. In 2007, Annabel was the coordinator for the 121 Coalition, organizing a grassroots effort to successfully pass U.S. House Resolution 121, also known as the “comfort women” resolution, which will be the subject of her upcoming film Journey Into the Divide.
————————————————-
She fits the profile of a die hard Obama supporter: grievances against society, demands for retribution, elite schooling, etc. People like her are utterly incapable of judging him on the basis of performance. They apply utopian standards. Rather than forming a little red guard to start a cultural revolution she should devote her time and energy to understanding why her hero does not click with ordinary Americans and cannot deliver anything he promises. She should take time to educate herself a little on the issue. To start with she should read Chris Hedges on Brand Obama who was cynically marketing to the public by the big business cartel, and naive people like her swallowed it hook line and sinker.

It’s no surprize that Brazil has sided with Iran against obama. Brazil has buddied up with Iran’s dictator quite a bit lately.

Hillary’s trip was supposed to set the stage for obama to visit later on this year.

It really seems to me that his popularity is taking a nosedive overseas. I hope this continues.

By waiting so long and just not pushing for sanctions that other major powers are against, he is once again a laughingstock. And in the meantime Iran builds it’s arsenal.

As far as the Middle East is concerned, it really doesn’t matter whether it is Kerry or not. Nothing is going to happen as long as Abbas and his terrorist buddies are set on not recognizing the state of Israel, on insisting that the jewish holy city of Jerusalem should be theirs. As long as they are intent on the Israeli people’s total annihilation and obama continues to side with them, Israel is on it’s own and Netanyahu will protect it.

I wonder where they keep getting that the tea party people are mainly Republicans? It’s bullsh!t. I went to two different tea parties in Orlando, FL last year. Granted, there were mostly caucasion faces there, but not entirely. It was the beginning of the movement, and there were people from the Democratic party there, too. These tea party people represent Americans who are concerned about a federal government that is out of control, and I support for what they stand. It’s not a party identity thing,
but an constitution loving American thing. These were every day Americans attending these rallies. The Orlando police, after the first rally that drew around 5000 people, commented that they had never had such a large crowd that behaved themslves so well. That comment tells people a lot about who the tea partiers are. They are NOT radicals, unless it’s considered radical to stand against an over-reaching, and tyrannical government. Co-opting the tea party name was smart in my opinion because the original Boston Tea Party best exemplifies the revolution that is
starting to gain traction throughout all areas of this country.

I would love to attend a coffee party rally with a sign that reads “Keep your coffee and Kool Aid. I prefer my TEA”.

I think what they are finding is that Plouffe cannot do a repeat of 2008. This Park idiot is not the answer either. The truth is it is well nigh impossible to sustain a movement based on hope and change when you are really Bush III and cannot deliver on the promises you make. And without the movement there is no way he can win in 2012.

If Hillary is smart, she may already know if the powers that be are gearing up for bambi II. This may be why she stated she would only serve one term as SOS. The work is a laborous one but she may also be distancing herself far enough in advance in order to stop from being tarnished from this growing mess.

If she can divorce herself from the dims corruption, then all is well and she can go on to bigger and greater things as Bill has done.

PROVIDENCE — Former U.S. Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee leads his closest competitor in the race for governor by 10 percentage points, according to the latest independent poll.

The Republican-turned-independent Chafee led the field, regardless of whether the Democratic nominee was General Treasurer Frank T. Caprio or Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch, according to the automated telephone survey by Rasmussen Reports.

Chafee led Caprio 37 percent to 27 percent, with Republican John Robitaille trailing with 19 percent of the potential vote, and another 17 percent undecided.

In a matchup with Lynch, Chafee led the attorney general 38 percent to 24 percent, with Robitaille drawing 22 percent, and 16 percent undecided.

Chafee campaign manager John Pagliarini said this third poll in recent weeks to show Chafee ahead “indicates that the voters of Rhode Island prefer a governor who is not encumbered by partisan politics and will lead the state in a New Way Forward.

“It reflects the belief that the people of Rhode Island want a governor who is willing to demonstrate leadership, make very difficult decisions, and has an irrefutable reputation for honesty and integrity.”

Though Robitaille still trails the pack, his campaign said it was pleased to see he is “now just two percentage points behind Patrick Lynch and just eight percentage points behind Frank Caprio … This poll certainly proves that Robitaille is gaining name recognition after only one month of campaigning.”

But new Caprio spokesman Nick Hemond suggested that Caprio, a first-term state treasurer and former state senator, was the one suffering from lack of name recognition. “Every recent poll has shown that despite not having the name recognition of his opponents, as Frank continues to listen to voters, they are strongly relating to him and are prepared to support him,” Hemond said.

A spokesman for the Lynch camp said: “Any poll taken this early, before any major campaign communication effort, is soft. Patrick Lynch has a solid record of fighting for the interests of working families and that will resonate with the voters as they begin to tune into the race in the coming months.”

The telephone survey of 500 “likely voters” was conducted on Feb. 25.The survey found the candidates in the same relative positions of strength and weakness as two other recent polls conducted by Fleming & Associates for WPRI-TV and Brown University.

Rasmussen’s first report on the poll reflected an out-of-context question about Mark Parkinson, the governor of Kansas, but that was later corrected with Rasmussen communications director Debra Falk attributing the blip to a “cut and paste” error. It was Rhode Island Governor Carcieri who drew a 44-percent approval rating, and a 54-percent disapproval rating for his job performance, not Parkinson.

I have it on good authority, now that the current Mayor of Providence, David Cicciline has thrown his hat in the ring in the race for Congressman Kennedy’s seat. This move will open the field for a new mayor of the city of Providence. A potential candidate seeking the mayorship may very well be Democrat Joseph R. Paolino, Jr., a familiar face in city hall having served as Mayor from April 1984 to Jan 1991. Mayor Paolino subsequently went on to be appointed by President William J. Clinton, as US Ambassador to Malta.

Gates, I thought, could this be the same man that shouted nasty racist epithets to the cop who was responding to a 911 call investigating a break in at his residence… now playing nice, nice, on camera as the sweetest, gentlest man you would love to know and listen to of an evening spent sipping wine and scrumptious hors d’oeuvres. How disappointing.

Sorry to say, one in the same.. the link tells all. He lassoed guests like Meryl Streep and Dr. Oz to appear with him at a round table to kick off this geological adventure for a series. (Unfortunately or fortunately, the idea was stolen/copied by a former Friends star, Lisa Kudrow. The idea itself, knowing who you are and where you come from, Ms Kudrow expanded and will be a weekly show.)

Former President Bill Clinton tells “Extra’s” Lauren Sanchez that he didn’t have anesthesia or sedatives for his recent heart procedure.

Clinton bounced back so quickly that he was up and around the next day. “The next day, I went out and walked two miles in the cold right before the snow in New York,” said Clinton, adding, “I didn’t have any anesthesia or any sedatives. I just had this stent put in and I asked if I could watch it on the screen while they were fixing me, so I think that I was able to make a quicker comeback because I didn’t go under.”

The active Clinton admits to “working too hard and sleeping too little and exercising too little” as the reason for his heart problem. He’s making a change by exercising and sleeping more these days and is more rigorous about his diet.

Clinton has also teamed with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to combat childhood obesity. The two are reaching out to families to fix America’s ongoing weight problem.

“They can do things within their means. We understand not everybody has the same amount of time. Not everybody has the same amount of money, but everybody can do something to increase their exercise level and improve their food intake,” said Clinton.

On a lighter note, the former President tells “Extra” his Oscar movie picks for this Sunday. “I think the ‘Hurt Locker’ is, of the ones I seen, the best war movie I’ve seen in a long time. A great movie. I think ‘Up in the Air’ was brilliantly done and didn’t chicken out at the end… I saw them both, I thought they were both great. I know they were both nominated and I haven’t seen all the movies so I can’t say who should win.”

I was watching Diane Sawyer tonight and she was talking to someone about PSA’s. The American Cancer Institute is now saying men will not need a PSA when they are 50 unless there is a family history of Prostate Cancer.

Isn’t this kind of like when they decided women did not need all those mammo’s???This sure seems like this is all tied to this healthcare crap Obama is trying to shove down our throats, doesn’t it to you???

MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Good afternoon. We’ll start now the press interview with Foreign Minister Amorim and the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Both ministers will say a few words to begin, and then we will go to questions from the press.

Mr. Amorim.

FOREIGN MINISTER AMORIM: (Via interpreter) First of all, I’d like to once again convey my words of welcome, my earnest words of welcome, to the U.S. State – or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which she has by now been able to successfully test her approval rating in Brazil, given the vast crowd of photographers and media professionals everywhere she’s been, including this ministry so far. But it is indeed a great pleasure to have you here as Secretary. Obviously, the U.S. Secretary of State is always a high-profile figure. But I think it is also fair to say that Hillary Clinton is, in her own right, a largely admired person, one who has elicited a lot of attention and respect from many people, including, of course, those of us in Brazil.

Former President Bill Clinton tells “Extra’s” Lauren Sanchez that he didn’t have anesthesia or sedatives for his recent heart procedure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

After a certain age, I believe general anesthesia has a
detrimental effect on the our cognizant ability, articulation, and short term memory. I think Bill felt some of these same symptoms after his first and second heart surgeries and why he chose going “commando” with just a local anesthetic to remediate the clogged artery.

When I saw on another blog a list of polls reflecting public reaction to the health care proposal of the dims, with Quinipac showing nearly twenty point spread between against an for, Pew in the ten point range and good old WashPo/ABC showing only a three point spread which is withing the m.o.e. this was my response:
———————————————————————-
ABC/WashPo is consistently the most pro Obama polling group in the industry.

Why is this? (Multiple Choice–time limit 10 seconds)

a) Obama/s gumba Soros is heavily invested in ABC?

b) ABC was given the exclusive on Obama.initial introduction of this issues, which raised eyebrows?

c) George Step and fetch it meets with the White House each week to help them plan media strategy?

d) Linda Douglas is the White House Truth Ministry?

e) as their brick and mortar operations fold, other ABC people with flexible morals are hoping to land a White House job?

f) the pollsters are like actuaries. Ask them what 2+2 is and thy will turn around and ask you “what do you want it to be?”

g) all of the above–figures don’t lie, but in this case liars figure

h) this is all just one big coincidence. No conspiracy theories please. These people are honest journalists.

I met with a family today from the Dominican Republic living and working in America who were surprised to learn Bill Clinton was a special envoy to Haiti and is instrumental in helping Haitians rebuilding Haiti from the ground up… They were in a state of amazement.

Mrs. Smith, What planet have they been living on? THey usually use sedatives during stents, but not a general. Some folks don’t even need that, I did I was scrared to death, there’s something about having a wire from your groin sliding into the coronory arteries that just is not relaxing. Bill’s tough!

Well, this is from the GOP Eagle Forum. Just so you can see what they are saying.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are not mincing words. Their belief is that nothing is going to stand in the way of their plans to ram Government-Run Health Care down your throat — even if it means their political hides.

As Andrew McCarthy of National Review Online put it:

“Today’s Democrats are controlled by the radical Left, and it is more important to them to execute the permanent transformation of American society than it is to win the upcoming election cycles.”

In other words, despite all the talk about bipartisanship… the smoke-and-mirror rhetoric… the bogus health care summit… Obama, Pelosi and Reid are working overtime to advance their “Government Knows Best” agenda. And, they’re moving full steam ahead with their dubious scheme to pass what they view as the ultimate prize — ObamaCare.

Truth be told, the unfortunate reality is that without a ground swell of grassroots opposition, they just may succeed.

According to The Washington Examiner, Pelosi said on Monday she believes “…she can muster the 217 House votes needed to pass President Obama’s massive health care bill via the so-called reconciliation process.” AP’s Charles Babington added, “Nine House Democrats indicated in an Associated Press survey Monday they have not ruled out switching their ‘no’ votes to ‘yes’ on President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul….”

Make no mistake, the threat of government-run health care becoming the law of the land is as serious as it has ever been. The only thing… repeat… the only thing that stands in Obama, Pelosi and Reid’s way is YOUR willingness, together with that of your fellow Americans, to make your voice heard. The time to act is now.

——————————————————————————–
Our best chance to stop ObamaCare is to stop it in the House of Representatives where we only need to turn a few votes.

Please use the button or hyperlink below and send your urgent and personalized Blast Faxes to Barack Obama and each of the 31 members of the House of Representatives who live in conservative districts but previously voted in favor of ObamaCare. Or alternately, you can send over 530 urgent, personalized faxes to Barack Obama and all of the Members of the House and Senate.

Tell them, in no uncertain terms, that when the American people said “No” to ObamaCare, we meant it. Let these elected officials know that you are on to the latest, underhanded scheme to pass ObamaCare against the wishes of the American people. Tell them to stop the back-room deals and legislative tricks. Demand they stand firm against government-run health care.

….this is too funny- the Times Online’s story of the bullish Obama’s threat of steamrolling HC through Congress…

Barack Obama: I’ll steamroll health reforms through Congress
serious
President Obama declared for the first time yesterday that he was prepared to steamroller his troubled health reform legislation through Congress with only Democratic support; a move Republicans denounced as the “nuclear option”.

Signalling that his patience had snapped after a year-long fight, (laughable!) Mr Obama laid the ground for Democrats in Congress to muscle the Bill through using a high-risk legislative manuvre known as reconciliation, which overrides a Republican filibuster. Although he did not use the word “reconciliation”, Mr Obama made it clear that that was the route he intended to take.

Democrats will, as a result, be able to get the health reform package through the Senate with a simple majority. Mr Obama’s party ceded their 60-stong majority in the upper chamber after losing the late Teddy Kennedy’s Massachusetts seat in January.

That shock defeat was due, in large part, to growing public hostility to Mr Obama’s health reforms, which many see as too expensive at a time of soaring deficits. Ramming the Bill through Congress is, therefore, a high-risk strategy that Republicans vowed to exploit.

(another ridiculous statement by our CIC:)

“In a speech at the White House, Mr Obama acknowledged the risks involved. “I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right,” he said. “The American people are waiting for us to lead. As long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership.””

Mr Obama rejected Republican calls to start drafting new legislation. “For us to start over now could simply lead to delay that could last another decade or even more. I have asked leaders in both houses of Congress to finish their work and schedule a vote in the next few weeks.”

The push for a swift end to the bruising battle was carefully choreographed by the White House after Mr Obama’s “bipartisan” healthcare summit with congressional Republicans last week. He used that encounter to place four Republican ideas into his final health reform package. That enabled him to say that he was reaching out to the opposition, at a time when Democrats are, in fact, preparing to shut them out of the process altogether.

Eric Cantor, the No 2 Republican in the House, said: “If the President simply adds a couple of Republican solutions to a trillion-dollar healthcare package, it isn’t bipartisanship. It’s political cover.”

Both parties have used reconciliation more than 20 times each since 1980 — but never to pass a piece of legislation as expensive and as sweeping as Mr Obama’s health reforms.

_____________________

This is scary- Obama thought process seems to sound like someone recovering from a hangover.. give them anything as long as it’s under the guise of HC, just get something to my desk..

Does Obama actually believe an irate public will not be responding to his indignation of passing a telephone book size bill, never having read it himself, without repercussions?

1. Barack Obama: “I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right,” he said. “The American people are waiting for us to lead. As long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership.”” (Fore!!! I can run this country from the back of a golf cart, me and my shadow Reggie Love.

2. Albert Camus: “The welfare of the people (in this case, all 32% of them) has always been the alibi of tyrants and it provides the servants of tyranny with a clear conscience.”

Eric Cantor, the No 2 Republican in the House, said: “If the President simply adds a couple of Republican solutions to a trillion-dollar healthcare package, it isn’t bipartisanship. It’s political cover.
————————————-
Or, in the venacular: A shit sandwich with a couple cherries on top of it is still a shit sandwich.

Where is moon? He needs to weigh in on the hubris of Obama. Particularly the idea that Barack considers himself to be a leader. That one is comedy store material. He is leader like he is a scratch golfer. A scratch golfer who has never broken 90. But it is all in his mind.

Come to think of it, the scratch golfer analogy is useful. His caddy is the New York Times. He lines up on the first hole facing in the wrong direction. Rather than forcing him to line up in the direction of the hole, Soros brings in Robert Trent Jones Jr. to redesign the hole and a construction crew to build it in the direction he is facing. When that is done, Barack turns to his playing partners (Jamie Dimon of Chase, Robert Wolfe of UBC and Tiger Woods fresh off his own apology tour. They say no no no Barack you call it. Barack says okay, Rezko rules, heads I win and tails you lose–nine strikes a side, million dollar Nassau–a lawful bribe if they lose. Dimon speaks up and says no Barack, I will give you twenty strokes a side and double the bet–so you cannot lose and I will get to I mean have to pay you when I lose the bet. Barack says that sounds fair. Barack then turns to his caddy and says give me my putter. NYT says but Barack you cannot tee off with your putter. Whereupon Barack says yes I can, I am president and I will steamroll anyone who says no (like the little engine that could. Three big waggles then the backswing then wack off the hosel, and the ball dribbles 30 feet off the tee. Everyone pretends not to notice. But he has managed to shank his first shot. Where is the damned ball he asks? The New York Times caddy says holy moly I can see it from here. It is on the green four inches from the hole. Nice shot Barack. Barack takes a bow and tells the caddy to say nice things about his form, and pick up that ball 30 feet off the tee which must belong to some other player. And so it goes.

Obama is not proposing a government run health care program. He is simply proposing to force everyone to buy private insurance as we must with auto insurance now.

I’m for a government run health care program. It would save enormous amounts of money while providing everyone with one heckuva lot more healthcare than they have now. Nothing changes under Obama’s plan other than feds are now going to force you to support private enterprise.

How is it that you’re still under the impression that it’s government run? I don’t understand how you can say that.

Is anyone else affected the way I am by those emblems and symbols (like Elton John and Hillary’s videos, Hill/Bill/Chel photos etc, and Hillary’s magnificent performance as SOS)of what our nation could have had in 2008? I still seethe about the process and my anger has not lessened for the people who were traitors. But of late I find that I seem to mourn what we lost (what my great-grandchildren have lost)to the point that I am sickened.
In my head the song S.O.S. is playing. S.O.S. we are sending you our S.O.S. Please listen to our cry.

With her pledge came having to abide by other DNC roolz like disenfranchising the votes of Americans in the states of FL and MI.

=======================

This is a bot/Brazile fallacy. Refraining from campaigning in FL/MI did NOT commit Hillary to agreeing their votes should not be counted. In fact late in the campaign she fought (unsuccessfully) to get them counted.

confloyd: “JanH, DO you think she will run again?”
JanH: “I wish with all my heart that she would. America needs her leadership skills now more than ever. But in all honesty, no I don’t think she will. Of course I’ve been wrong before so who knows.”

Exactly my thinking. Hillary is doing terrific work as SOS (I’m on the State site every day, and have worked for the State department myself). But in order to enter the primaries, she would have to leave her job by September 2011 (aka 9/11) and start getting prepared before then. If she did that, she would be called a “quitter” and “opportunist” “disloyal” to her boss and that’s before they even start in with the misogynistic crap.

The only opening I can see for her is if Bayh outpolls o in the fall of 2011, and Palin or Romney outpoll o too, then possibly o may decide not to run. But even then, there is the precedent of Carter who knew damn well he was going to lose and still held out against Kennedy. o is far more narcissistic than Carter ever was. Then again, o may just be fed up with the WH show and leave of his own accord. After all, he still gets his golden parachute retirement even with a single term.

So, I don’t think there’s much chance for Hillary in 2012. 2016 is another matter. But like JanH’s, my crystal has been wrong before and, then again, anything can happen in politics.

wbboei
March 4th, 2010 at 12:03 am
Jan– if you said yep to A-G then you cannot agree with H. H contradicts A-G. The only one who can do that is Barack. For him inconsistency is the spice of life.

—————–
LOL…I guess my sarcasm gene is getting rusty. When I read your post I started thinking of all those multiple choice exams I had in high school and hated so much. I always loved the answers “none of the above” or “all of the above.”

“Hoyer said news of the sexual harassment allegation — coming on the same day Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) gave up his gavel on the Ways and Means Committee — shouldn’t give Republicans a leg up in November.”

Hah! Rangel stepping down from the Ways and Means committee chair is yet another set back for Obama trying to ram through the health care bill via reconciliation.

And add Massa giving up his seat in that Republican leaning district is yet another arrow in the quiver for Republicans’ hopes for November.

NY TIMES DOCUMENTS OBAMA’S UPHILL STRUGGLE FOR RECONCILIATION ON H.C.R.

Three groups of Dems in the House have major issues with the Senate bill. They call Obama’s rushed timeframes “unrealistic”.

Instead of presidents like FDR and LBJ with heavy legistlative backgrounds, the inept, inexperienced POTUS let the bill be slapped together by Congress. He’s building his house on a shaky foundation, so it will fail due to its structural instability.

The article contains a few good quotes:

“On Capitol Hill, the strategy could prove a heavy lift for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, who are now under intense pressure from the White House to translate Mr. Obama’s wishes for a final bill into legislative language. Both leaders issued statements Wednesday praising Mr. Obama and vowing to press ahead. But, noticeably, neither publicly committed to Mr. Obama’s timetable.”

“Privately, Senate leadership aides said Mr. Obama’s deadline could be difficult to meet….But the final language must still be sent to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for evaluation, a process that takes time.”

“Ms. Pelosi does not yet have the votes she needs to pass the legislation. She faces complex negotiations with both the moderate and liberal wings of her party to come up with a package that can pass the House without deviating so much from the existing Senate version that Mr. Reid would have trouble assembling a majority for the final vote in the Senate.”

“I am not inclined to support the Senate version,” said Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, who voted for the House bill in November. “I would like something more concrete than a promise. The Senate cannot promise its way out of a brown paper bag.”

“As Democrats prepared for a final showdown with Republicans, other potential stumbling blocks emerged. House Democrats from New York met Wednesday with Ms. Pelosi to discuss their concern that the emerging bill would shortchange their state on Medicaid and other issues.”

“I am very, very disappointed and unhappy,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York. “The White House is taking us for granted, and they shouldn’t.”

“Supporters of abortion rights… said Wednesday that they were alarmed at the prospect that lawmakers might impose new restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion in the push to enact sweeping health legislation.”

nytimes.com/2010/03/04/health/policy/04health.html?hp

Obama Calls for ‘Up or Down Vote’ on Health Care Bill
==========================

WASHINGTON — President Obama, beginning his final push for a health care overhaul, called Wednesday for Congress to allow an “up or down vote” on the measure, and sketched out an ambitious — and, some Democrats said, unrealistic — timetable for his party to pass a bill on its own within weeks.

“I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform,” Mr. Obama said during a 20-minute speech in the East Room of the White House. He said there was no point in starting over, as Republicans are demanding, and called on nervous Democrats to stick with him, declaring there was no reason “for those of us who were sent here to lead to just walk away.”

The speech, less than a week after Mr. Obama held a high-profile televised health care forum, will usher in what White House officials say will be their last campaign to bring Washington’s long and contentious health care debate to a close — with a bill-signing ceremony at the end.

On Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will meet at the White House with insurance industry executives to spotlight unpopular rate increases; next week, Mr. Obama will travel to Missouri and Pennsylvania to stump for the health care bill.

In his remarks, the president refrained from using the word “reconciliation,” the parliamentary tactic that Democrats are expected to employ to avoid a Republican filibuster and win passage with a simple majority. But he made clear that was his intent, and reminded Americans that despite current Republican objections, other major bills had been passed using the same tactic.

“Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes,” Mr. Obama said. “And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for Cobra health coverage for the unemployed and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.”

Republicans were furious.

“They’re making a vigorous effort to try to jam this down the throats of the American people, who don’t want it,” the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, told reporters after Mr. Obama’s remarks. “We think that’s a policy mistake, and we think resorting to these kind of tactics, to thumb your noses at the American people, is something that ought to be resisted.”

On Capitol Hill, the strategy could prove a heavy lift for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, who are now under intense pressure from the White House to translate Mr. Obama’s wishes for a final bill into legislative language. Both leaders issued statements Wednesday praising Mr. Obama and vowing to press ahead. But, noticeably, neither publicly committed to Mr. Obama’s timetable.

Privately, Senate leadership aides said Mr. Obama’s deadline could be difficult to meet. The tentative plan is for the House to adopt the bill passed by the Senate, and for both chambers to use reconciliation to pass a package of changes that would bridge gaps between the initial House and Senate versions.

But the final language must still be sent to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for evaluation, a process that takes time. Many aspects of the legislation remain unresolved, and rank-and-file Democrats in the House remain deeply uneasy over both the substance of the bill and the process by which it would be adopted.

Ms. Pelosi does not yet have the votes she needs to pass the legislation. She faces complex negotiations with both the moderate and liberal wings of her party to come up with a package that can pass the House without deviating so much from the existing Senate version that Mr. Reid would have trouble assembling a majority for the final vote in the Senate.

“I am not inclined to support the Senate version,” said Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, who voted for the House bill in November. “I would like something more concrete than a promise. The Senate cannot promise its way out of a brown paper bag.”

As Democrats prepared for a final showdown with Republicans, other potential stumbling blocks emerged. House Democrats from New York met Wednesday with Ms. Pelosi to discuss their concern that the emerging bill would shortchange their state on Medicaid and other issues.

“I am very, very disappointed and unhappy,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, Democrat of New York. “The White House is taking us for granted, and they shouldn’t.”

Supporters of abortion rights, in and out of Congress, said Wednesday that they were alarmed at the prospect that lawmakers might impose new restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion in the push to enact sweeping health legislation. Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, said language restricting insurers’ ability to cover abortions “remains in the president’s proposal, and we are very concerned about that.”

Friday will mark one year since Mr. Obama laid out his plans for a health care overhaul with a high-profile forum at the White House, where he engaged in a lively debate with lawmakers of both parties and executives from the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. On Wednesday, the scene at the White House was far different.

Mr. Obama spoke, without taking questions, to a group of sympathetic medical professionals, many of them clad in white lab coats to provide a TV-friendly image. After 12 months of legislative hearings, town hall meetings, speeches, polls and debates, Mr. Obama was in the position of selling not only the public, but his own party, on his top domestic priority.

“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Mr. Obama said. “They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right.”

Seeking to reassure wavering Democrats that he would back them up, he pledged to do “everything in my power to make the case for reform.”

Moments after he finished speaking, the White House announced plans for him to visit Pennsylvania and Missouri — states that are home to vulnerable Democrats like Representative Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania and Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri, who were among 39 Democrats to vote against the health measure when it passed the House last year. If Mr. Obama is to sign his legislation into law, he is going to have to convert some of those no votes into yeses; traveling to a lawmaker’s home state could be one way to do that.

Senior advisers to Mr. Obama are betting that the politics of health care will eventually turn in the party’s favor, if the president can actually sign a bill into law. The legislation includes popular restrictions on the insurance industry; some, like a provision barring insurers from discriminating against children on the basis of pre-existing conditions, would take effect quickly — a point noted by Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs.

“The president has always subscribed to the notion that the politics will catch up,” Mr. Gibbs said.

Did I ever say “I told you so” about Barack Obama? If I did, I never meant to and will never do so again. Besides which, it’s too soon to deliver a definitive verdict on his presidency, especially when it remains to be seen whether he can achieve the miraculous feat of reforming health care. It grieves me, though, to report that a CNN poll has found that 52 per cent of Americans now think he does not deserve a second term in the White House. Even the hitherto Obamaniacal Washington Post – doubtless picking up on my idea that Hillary Clinton has her eye on a nomination to the US Supreme Court – is mooting that Obama should stand aside for Clinton in 2012, with the understanding that President Clinton II would nominate him for her first vacancy on the court.

Pundits are already predicting a possible Armageddon in the midterm elections this November, in a rerun of 1994 when Republicans took control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in 40 years. These days it is compulsory for every US politician to swear solemnly that this year’s elections are the only ones on their minds. The truth, however, is that more and more attention is being paid to an election being held in less than 1,000 days – the next presidential polling day, which will either put Obama back into the White House for a second term or give the country a new, 45th president. Inside the Obama camp, strategising for what insiders are calling “the re-elect” has already begun.

Remember the names

Yet what had seemed inconceivable only a few months ago is now all too real: prospective Republican candidates for the 2012 election are already jockeying for the suddenly much-coveted presidential nomination, with every expectation that he (or she: we must not forget the lady known at high school as “Sarah Barracuda”, the former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin) could become the next US president.

We should not pay too much attention to a straw poll at the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) here last month, given the carnival atmosphere around the Marriott Wardman Park and that only 2,935 of the delegates cast a vote. But the results give an inkling of the angry mood among Republicans. The CPAC, once seen as an outlet for the party’s far right, is much more representative of mainstream Republicanism now that the US is drifting ever further rightwards.

Coming in first was Ron Paul, the 74-year-old libertarian congressman from Texas who declares himself to be for “limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets and a return to sound monetary policies” – or, in other words, no more cosseting and government handouts for you, buddy; now you sink or swim on your own. That, sadly, is the viewpoint of most of the 52 per cent of Americans who don’t want to see Obama in the White House for a second term, even though Paul’s nomination was a symbolic one, greeted with jeers as well as cheers among the delegates.

Second, and way ahead in the presidential stakes as far as the Republican Party establishment is concerned, was the former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. But we should not easily dismiss the two candidates trailing far behind him: the egregious Ms Barracuda and the up-and-coming 49-year-old governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty. Or, for that matter, several other plausible possibilities.

Step forward, for example, Marco Rubio, at 38 a rapidly rising political star in Florida who may win a Senate seat in November. He delivered to the CPAC delegates exactly the kind of pseudo-patriotic demagoguery that the impotent and disenchanted want to hear. Immigrants from Cuba such as his parents, he said, “clearly understand how different America is from the rest of the world . . . what makes America great is not that we have more rich people than anybody else”, but that “there are dreams that are impossible everywhere else but are possible here”.

Throw in that kind of triumphalist exceptionalism that Republicans (well, all Americans, really) love, and combine it with seething anger and evocations of violence, and you get an idea of the potent mix facing the Democrats this November and in two and a half years’ time. Referring to Tiger Woods’s wife, Pawlenty yelled that “we should take a page out of her playbook and take a nine-iron to smash . . . big government . . . out of the window”. Pawlenty and Rubio – remember the names.

“Hopey-changey stuff”
Violent imagery is also working well for Palin, who stayed away from Washington following her starring role at the breakaway Tea Party Convention in Nashville early last month. The party faithful now flock to her $100,000-a-time speeches (“How’s that hopey-changey stuff working out for ya?”), and she insists the only way Obama can save his presidency is to declare war on Iran, because people would think “maybe he’s tougher than we think”.

It’s all enough to make you yearn for the relative orthodoxy of Romney (who nevertheless once drove his family on holiday to Canada with their dog strapped on the roof). He would face the disadvantage of being 65 on polling day, but (like Obama) is blessed with looks that make him seem younger. His Mormonism may kill off his chances in Middle America, though.

Most Republicans, alas, are hardly enthusiastic for a candidate who passed the kind of health-care reform in Massachusetts that the president is currently failing to do nationwide. Nine-irons and declarations of war go down much better with the multitudes of unemployed and economically suffering, who now desperately feel a need to express the fury that Obama’s so far feeble presidency has evoked. It’s not a pretty picture.

Embattled incumbents with ethics problems. Allegations of sexual harrassment leading to a competitive open seat. Dems have seen this movie before — only last time, it happened to the other guys.

Now, a beleagured Dem majority has to hope their party can withstand a building wave that favors the GOP, and that effort isn’t made any easier by countless, and mounting, self-inflicted errors.

4 years ago, it was GOPers who found themselves on the receiving end of jolt after jolt of bad news. This time around, Dem strategists are beginning to accept the inevitability of big losses, and a sort of morbid gallows humor has settled over Congressional and political aides.

Then, an unpopular war in Iraq and a failed attempt to privatize social security put the GOP on the mat, but behavior of several GOPers in Congress knocked them out cold. This year, an ongoing war in Afghanistan has some in the Dem base deflated, while efforts to reform health care have sent Dem approval ratings — and those of Pres. Obama — plummeting.

Cunningham was sentenced to 100 months in jail for tax evasion, conspiracy and other charges. Ney served a 30-month sentence for his role in the Jack Abramoff scandal. Ney resigned on Nov. 3, just 4 days before the GOP lost control of the House. DeLay was never convicted, though he resigned in late ’05.

GOPers knew their efforts to keep control would fail, however, in late Sept. of ’06, when Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned amid allegations he had inappropriate contact with House pages.

Dems now face 2 of their own unforced errors on the same day. Today, Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) said he will temporarily step down as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee after an ethics panel found he violated the chamber’s rules.

And Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) said he would retire after a single term in office; Capitol Hill buzzed with rumors that the ethics committee is investigating alleged harrassment of a male staffer, though Massa denied those reports and said a recurrence of cancer had forced him to step aside.

Dems are also dealing with a wave of retirements, many of which come in districts the GOP has its eye on. Of the 15 Dems who will not seek another term in the House, the GOP has a strong chance in at least 11, including Massa’s.

In ’06, Dems won DeLay’s, Ney’s and Foley’s seats, along with seats held by retiring Reps. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Bob Beauprez (R-CO), Mark Green (R-WI) and Jim Nussle (R-IA). This time, seats left vacant by Reps. Charlie Melancon (D-LA), Dennis Moore (D-KS), Vic Snyder (D-AR), Bart Gordon (D-TN), John Tanner (D-TN) and others are at the top of the NRCC’s target list.

At the moment, it seems, GOPers are most worried that the expectations bar is being set too high; both House Min. Whip Eric Cantor and House GOP Conference chair Mike Pence have predicted the party will take back the lower chamber.

As Dems will tell their friends across the aisle, their worries could be much, much worse. Dems benefitted 4 years ago when the GOP’s mistakes compounded an already-terrible political environment. This year, after Rangel’s ethics troubles, retirements in vulnerable districts and rumors flying that Massa’s story isn’t finished breaking yet, Dems fear the tables are about to be turned.

Join the final march for health reform
=====================================

Both parties agree that the status quo is unacceptable and gets more dire each day. Now, it’s time to make a final decision about the future of health care in America.

In the few crucial weeks ahead, you can help make sure the President’s proposal becomes law.

Add your name now to join OFA’s campaign to fight alongside President Obama in the final march toward health reform — and stay tuned for national actions and events in your local community in the coming days and weeks.

He has no discipline and no willpower. While Bill Clinton takes his health issues seriously, the idiot thinks he is invincible.

————
Obama Chows Down: ‘Don’t Tell Michelle’

While First Lady Michelle Obama spends Wednesday in Mississippi, a stop in her anti-obesity drive, it’s worth noting that President Obama busted himself Tuesday when he filled a plate with southern cooking at a restaurant in Savannah, Ga.

Former United States President Bill Clinton always waved and said hello to Shobha Vanchiswar when he walked through her neighbourhood in Chappaqua, New York, as part of his daily exercise routine.

One day in the fall of 2007, Vanchiswar got the nerve to strike up a conversation with him. She had heard Clinton talking on television about his foundation.

“He was talking in a way that made sense to me,” Vanchiswar said. “Eliminate the hoopla and spend all of the money on the charity work. I was listening to someone who feels the way I do. I really connected with what he was saying. I was listening to someone who has fame and power, speaking what’s exactly on my mind.”

Vanchiswar, a native of Mumbai told Clinton she was interested in his foundation’s work. Clinton arranged for Vanchiswar and her husband Dr Murali Mani, who works for Philips Research USA in Briarcliff Manor, New York, and daughter Mira, who was 10 at the time, to see some of the foundation’s work during their holiday to India in December 2007.

The Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative negotiates lower costs for antiretroviral treatments and works with local governments to improve health-care systems. The family’s tour of the non-governmental organisations –and two orphanages for children with HIV/AIDS, the Naya Jivan and Muktajeevan outside of Mumbai, all of which receive support from the Clinton Foundation — was a life-changing experience.

Vanchiswar was inspired to write a series of poems about “the children who had won my heart forever.” She put her collection of poems along with photographs from the orphanages and published a book called The Lucky Ones.

“I wanted to do something,” said Vanchiswar, who was educated as a scientist, and is an artist, writer, and garden designer. “Writing an article for the newspaper, telling friends to donate money didn’t seem enough. The normal thing for me is to write poetry. I write poetry about whatever affects me. The poems just started coming to me. When I was done, I felt a catharsis.”

She was deeply touched by her meeting with the children who had contracted the AIDS virus at birth, and their caregivers. “Against all odds, these children live lives filled with joy,” Vanchiswar said.

“The Clinton Foundation is invited into countries, and they come in to do things others are not doing. They’re really trying to help with reaching out and identifying patients and getting help for them and helping the NGOs. The people I met through the Clinton Foundation are brilliant, motivated and energetic. They believe in what they are doing,” Vanchiswar said. “I wanted to make a contribution, create an awareness of this for people to realise that there’s hope. Each of us is capable of doing more than we think we are capable of. My natural instinct was to do something for the country I grew up in.”

She titled her book The Lucky Ones, she said, because these children are truly fortunate to have been identified, treated and cared for by the foundation.
Clinton, she said, has agreed to sign 250 copies of the book. The books will be sold through the museum store at the Clinton Library in Arkansas. Copies will also be sold at the New Castle Historical Society in Chappaqua. All proceeds from sales of the book will go to the Clinton Foundation’s AIDS initiative.

JanH, I hate to say this, but I actually listened to Romney yesterday while he was on Fox and he has some good ideas. Its the campaigning Romney that irritates me. I think he could actually win if his real personality would come thru and not that campaigning one. That one grates on my nerves. Its the same when I listen to Hannity, you know, it irritates me to the bone.

What a difference two years makes. As voters in Texas head to the polls today to vote in their 2010 primaries, Democrats find themselves struggling to put up much of a fight in three of the most competitive Republican House districts in 2008.

In the 10th District, which stretches from Austin to Houston, businessman Jack McDonald was supposed to be the Democratic challenger who could finally defeat Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the third-term Republican who won with 55 percent or less the last two elections. But McDonald’s name won’t appear on the 10th District primary ballot today.

After forming an exploratory committee in February 2009, McDonald raised more than $300,000 in five weeks. In April — 19 months before the election — the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee aired a radio ad in the district for a week that attacked McCaul for his vote against the stimulus bill. The move was a clear sign of the party’s faith in McDonald and its view that McCaul was vulnerable.

McDonald would go on to raise more than $1 million in 10 months. Then in late December — two weeks before the filing deadline — McDonald took a look at the political landscape and dropped out.

“Since forming our Exploratory Committee last February, the environment in our District has changed significantly,” McDonald wrote in a farewell message on his campaign Web site.

With McDonald out this year, the fallback challenger is Ted Ankrum, a retired Naval officer and Vietnam veteran who challenged McCaul in 2006. He garnered 40 percent that year – and held McCaul to 55 percent – despite spending only $64,000. He has yet to file a fundraising report with the Federal Election Commission and likely won’t receive the same national party support McDonald would have.

The Houston area-based 7th District is another in which Democrats were competitive in 2008, but won’t be in 2010. Two years ago Michael Skelly, an executive at a wind energy company, spent more than $3 million and held five-term Republican John Culberson to 56 percent. The result appeared to foretell future challenges. Instead, Culberson is running unopposed this year.

There will also be no Democrat running in the 24th District, located outside Dallas, where three-term Republican Kenny Marchant is running for re-election. Marchant won with just 56 percent in 2008, down from 60 percent in 2006 and 64 percent in 2004. His opponent in the last election, Tom Love, spent $22,000 and won 41 percent.

The political winds have shifted dramatically in the last two years, and Texas is no exception. Democrats were on the rise and looked ready to mount serious challenges in historically solid Republican districts. Today, however, in the three most competitive Republican-held districts in Texas, Democrats either don’t have a challenger at all, or an extremely well-funded challenger took a look at the district and said: Not this year.

Obama is not proposing a government run health care program. He is simply proposing to force everyone to buy private insurance as we must with auto insurance now.
————————————-
That is correct in the sense that there will be no pubic option, insurance companies will provide the coverage and people who do not want insurance will be forced to buy it. But government will be directly involved in deciding who gets health treatment and how much in the basic plan. That is called rationing. In the short term this is a device to raise revenue, since it is a pay now get the supposed benefits years later. In addition, it is a rationing and elimination of free riders strategy which government will be directly and intimately involved in. If it is not the true government program that Hillary wanted then what exactly is it? It is part and parcel of his entire agenda which is to move the United States from a system of private enterprise to state capitalism. It was foreign affairs magazine that first alerted me to this change in the context of China. That is proving to be the emerging pattern in the 21st century. It allows multi-national corporations to move freely throughout the world the way global capital does, unconstrained by borders. It allows them to get past the nasty constraint of sovereignty, produce goods in the cheapest venue which today is China and sell them into the market where they can get the highest return which up to now has been the United States. But look at Barack’s buddy Jamie Dimonde at Chase and Soros lieutenant Robert Wolfe at UBC. They take the money of their American depositors, deny the money to Americans who need credit to start businesses or to expand them, and they invest it abroad. Merrill Lynch is projecting a good year for the stock market assuming no catastrophic event takes place. And why is that? We are in a recession with 10% unemployment. The point is 70% of business of American corporation traded on NYSE is abroad. Thus, when you wonder where Obama is taking the country think of the words state capitalism.

This also explains the strange comment by Francis Fukayama that it was imperative that Obama pass Obamacare. He was writing about foreign policy yet he said that. He is a scholar at Johns Hopkins, colleague of Dr. Z and author of the book the end of history. That book written shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall proclaimed the end of ideology and the future would belong to markets–which is to say global capitalists. Evidently, Obamacare is seen by him as crucial to that techtonic shift.

wbboei
March 4th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Well, this is from the GOP Eagle Forum. Just so you can see what they are saying.
**************

WBB

Can you post the link? I tried to find it and couldn’t pull it up. I have heard it is our last stand to bombard these cowards. I don’t know if anything will help @ this point, maybe when the Repubs get in control they can not fund it, whatever, and let it die on the limb, but my fear is once it is here, it will be hard to stop the raping of hard working Americans. All our debt and money coming in, hard to see courage in these clowns. Gee, I stay awake each night trying to think of all the places I can think of to spend the 50% pay I take home now. Love supporting all those who refuse to work. I get to see the hardcore @ my work and it would amaze you the healthy 20.30.40 year olds on permanent disability for such things as “back pain”, anorexia, alcoholism, firomylgia…really fibromylgia? A designer disease if there ever was one.

The US Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether a group of hedge fund maestros colluded to place massive bets against the euro.

The probe centers on whether funds run by David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, George Soros’ Soros Fund Management, Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital and John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. conspired to help push the value of the euro down during “idea meetings” that were held over the past several weeks.

European countries like Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy have been choking on debt and may need to be rescued by healthy members of the European Union in order to prevent the spread of a crisis that could slam the euro.

The Justice Dept. is questioning whether the hedge fund managers conspired to further exacerbate the fiscal woes of Greece and other eurozone countries.

The investigation was launched after a Feb. 26 article in The Wall Street Journal described a gathering of hedge fund bigs during which they discussed making bets against European countries, including Greece.

Justice officials face the challenge of proving the hedge funds acted together rather than just gathering to exchange investment ideas, a common practice on Wall Street.

News of the probe follows comments last week by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the US central bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission were looking into derivatives transactions performed by banks like Goldman Sachs on behalf of Greece and Italy.

…every chance I found to shine a light on George Soros, I took it.. Here is an article that compliments the above story demonstrating Soros is determined to hire known Hedge Fund criminals to BREAK THE LAW for him….

“After government prosecutors fingered Raj Rajaratnam, founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, as the center of a widespread insider trading ring, it was widely assumed Galleon employees would have to switch industries to get new jobs.”

At the time, one hedge fund manager told The Post that Galleon resumes were being handed out like candy, but that the employees were considered too toxic to touch.

“Apparently not, when it comes to the payrolls of big hedgies like George Soros and Ken Griffin. Both are overlooking the taint of insider trading allegations and have added Galleon analysts to their staffs, according to Bloomberg. “

COPENHAGEN — George Soros arrived on the scene here yesterday to once again save us from ourselves.

The guy has tons of money and has no doubt whatsoever that global warming is cooking the planet and that it’s all the fault of human industry and innovation.

But, as usual, he wants you and me paying for this boondoggle. Not surprising from a guy like Soros, who has never created anything.

It’s almost like “Revenge of the Nerds.” Only now, when all the rules of nature are suspended to accommodate quack science, can all the losers finally sink their loser teeth into all the great inventors and imaginers who built the car engine, fed the world, saved millions of lives and made the world better for just about everyone alive.

Now, it’s important not to belittle the value of vultures. There is good reason federal law protects the scavengers of road kill. They are willing to dine on the carrion the rest of us would rather not touch.

Likewise, Soros bets on the collapse of currencies and makes out huge.

But nowhere in nature do vultures step forward and demand to be treated like sweet-voiced canaries to be kept in your living room only to void their vile diet all over civilized people.

Soros is the Larry Flynt of finance. Yet, somehow, he manages to get invited to all the big parties, whether he’s lobbying to tax into oblivion small business owners and family farmers in America or to punish industrious countries everywhere for all their mighty advancements.

Yesterday’s con was all about the money — it’s always about the money — rich countries paying poor countries to cope with all this global warming that UN scientists have so much trouble proving actually exists.

Soros’ idea is that the International Monetary Fund would “loan” huge amounts of money — $100 billion — to impoverished countries at highly advantageous rates.

In the unlikely event of a default, the loan would be backed by IMF gold reserves. But no need to talk about that because, really, does anybody think Bangladesh might possibly fail to meet its obligations or do anything dishonorable, like skip out on the bill?

Here’s an idea, George: Why don’t you back the loans yourself and let Americans and hard, imaginative workers everywhere get back to work improving the planet!

I am thinking of supporting Kendrick Meek for Senate as he was a strong Hillarey backer if I recall. He probably stands no chance against Crist or Rubio, but I am lenning that way. Iwill, however, ask him at the fund raiser about the Hillary/Obama thing, and why the black caucus imo, is openly hostile to Isarael.

Now that he is potus, I guess he can go back on his word on everything.
———-

White House Rebuffed In Effort to Kill Vote on House Bill Recognizing Armenian Genocide By Turks

March 04, 2010

The Obama administration asked the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to cancel a vote scheduled for today on a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide. The chairman of the committee, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., is going forward with the bill “mark up” and vote regardless. The bill, H. Res. 252, recognizes as genocide the “systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians” as ordered by the Turkish government from 1915 to 1923. It’s the kind of statement then-Sen. Obama supported; as a candidate for president, he said, “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian Genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that President.”

Turkish government officials, who are important U.S. allies, have long objected to the description of those events as genocide. After speaking to Turkish President Abdullah Gül on Wednesday, the president had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reach out to Berman.

“Secretary Clinton called Chairman Berman yesterday and in that conversation the Secretary indicated that further Congressional action could impede progress on normalization of relations,” said National Security Staff spokesman Mike Hammer. The conversation took place after the president spoke with President Gül and “expressed appreciation” for his and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “efforts on normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia.” The president also “pressed for rapid ratification of the protocols,” Hammer said, referring to efforts at normalization between Armenia and Turkey.

Describing himself as “very upset,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, told ABC News that this move” represents an insult on top of injury. The injury was the broken pledge by the president to recognize the genocide, and he’s taken that a step further by trying to block the Congress from doing the very thing that he pledged to do which was recognize the genocide.”

As senators, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Vice President Biden had all been “very outspoken” in favor of identical legislation. “Turkey does not get a vote or a veto in the US Congress,” Hamparian said. “The secretary shouldn’t be in the business of helping Turkey impose its gag rule on the representatives of the American people.”

During his trip to Turkey last April, the president disappointed Hamparian and other members of the Armenian-American community who supported his campaign by refraining from using the bold talk he made as a candidate about the genocide. Standing with President Gül, the president was asked about his position that the Turks need to acknowledge the up to 1.5 million Armenians the Ottoman Empire slaughtered around the time of World War I.

“My views are on the record and I have not changed views,” Mr. Obama said. “What I have been very encouraged by is news that under President Gül ‘s leadership, you are seeing a series of negotiations, a process, in place between Armenia and Turkey to resolve a whole host of longstanding issues, including this one.”

At the time, Hamparian told ABC News, “We’re profoundly disappointed. All the more so because his statements on this in his record before he became president nailed it in terms the facts, the practical side and the moral dimension. He repeatedly talked about this during the campaign, and he was really harsh on President Bush, he said it was inexcusable that Bush refused to acknowledge that this was genocide.” The president “finds himself doing exactly the thing he so sharply criticized the Bush administration for, which is being euphemistic and evasive. It’s a bitter thing for Armenian-Americans who really believed him and really worked hard.” As a senator and candidate, Mr. Obama was quite forceful on the matter and quite disdainful of the Bush administration’s tip-toeing around the word “genocide.”

In a January 2008 letter to the Armenian Reporter, Mr. Obama said he shared “with Armenian Americans – so many of whom are descended from genocide survivors – a principled commitment to commemorating and ending genocide. That starts with acknowledging the tragic instances of genocide in world history.”
In 2006, Mr. Obama noted, “I criticized the secretary of State for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, after he properly used the term ‘genocide’ to describe Turkey’s slaughter of thousands of Armenians starting in 1915. I shared with secretary Rice my firmly held conviction that the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” Asserted Mr. Obama, back then: “The facts are undeniable. An official policy that calls on diplomats to distort the historical facts is an untenable policy.” Mr. Obama also stated unequivocally that “as President I will recognize the Armenian Genocide.”

His position on the matter was so strong, the Armenian National Committee of America had its own Obama File on Armenian Genocide Recognition which included a Youtube clip of the President on the campaign trail saying, “there was a genocide that did take place against the Armenian people. It is one of these situations where we have seen a constant denial on the part of the Turkish government.”

Today Hammer reiterated that the “President’s position on the events of 1915 is well known and his view of that history has not changed.”

The same rotten Rx
ObamaCare — now with GOP sprinkles!
===================================

By MICHAEL TANNER
Posted: 12:56 AM, March 4, 2010

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try again.

With Plans A, B and C hav ing failed miserably, President Obama yesterday unveiled his latest “new and improved” version of health-care reform. He says that this incarnation “incorporates the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans — including some of the ideas that Republicans offered during the health-care summit.” Unfortunately, its fundamental premise remains exactly the same — a government takeover of the health-care system.

Start with those “Republican ideas”: Though mostly not bad, they’re hardly game changing.

* Increase the financial incentives for states to experiment with malpractice reform by $50 million. Wow — a million dollars per state! That undoubtedly has the trial lawyers quaking in their boots.

* Undercover stings to help root out Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Fine — but when fighting fraud in government programs becomes a major concession, it shows just how out of touch Washington has become.

* Increase Medicare reimbursements. OK, higher spending for a program that’s already going broke may well be a Republican idea, but it doesn’t exactly make Obama’s better.

* Allow health-savings accounts to be sold through the government-sponsored exchanges. This could be a positive step — but the details are key, and they remain to be seen.

HSAs have been proven to reduce the cost of health care and have added nearly 3 million people to the ranks of the insured since their inception. But they only really work in conjunction with high-deductible insurance — if your policy already pays for everything, there’s not much point to saving for health expenses.

And every version of ObamaCare to date has restricted high-deductible insurance and/or mandated low-deductible policies. Unless the president is prepared to make major changes in those areas, the HSA concession is just bait-and-switch.

All in all, saying that these changes represent a “compromise” with Republicans is a bit like saying that Yankee speedster Brett Gardner is a home-run hitter. It’s technically true (he hit three dingers last year), but no one’s going to mistake him for Babe Ruth.

The president has also touted the new plan as “smaller” and “leaner.” Smaller and leaner than what? This version may actually cost more than the last one — breaking the $1 trillion mark even under the White House’s rosy assumptions.

At its heart, ObamaCare hasn’t changed. It still represents a top-down, centralized, command-and-control approach to reform.

The government would require everyone to have health insurance, would determine what benefits that insurance must include, would regulate insurance prices and physician reimbursement and would micromanage how medicine is practiced.

All this would be accompanied by higher taxes and, most likely, higher insurance premiums.

It is a plan that says the government knows best — when it comes to a sixth of the US economy and some of the most important, personal and private decisions in people’s lives. A few cosmetic concessions can’t fix that basic premise.

Obama also made it clear yesterday that he wants Congress to use an obscure parliamentary gimmick known as “reconciliation” to bypass a Republican filibuster and force the bill through the Senate. Democrats will likely manage to get the 50 votes needed in the Senate to use this tactic — but the vote will be far closer in the House, where deaths, defections and resignations have erased the three-vote margin of victory Democrats had last November.

The president was right about one thing yesterday. As he said, “Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said, and just about everyone has said it. So now is the time to make a decision.”

Reportedly, as many as nine House Democrats who once voted against ObamaCare, including Rep. Scott Murphy of upstate New York, are now open to supporting the latest version. If they do, in the face of overwhelming public opposition, this new version of health reform could turn out to be Plan L — for “loser.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is promoting democratic and social reforms in Latin America, where many nations have troubled political histories and uneven democratic performance.

At a meeting Thursday of top officials from 15 countries in Central and South America plus Canada, Clinton planned to press nations in the Western Hemisphere to restore full relations with Honduras. A democratic election in November ended a political crisis resulting from a coup five months earlier.

U.S. officials also said Clinton intended to urge renewed efforts to combat crime and poverty, and promote women’s rights, economic development and the rule of law.

Some in Latin America have complained that the Obama administration has not fulfilled its high hopes for greater U.S. engagement. During her trip, Clinton has defended Washington’s actions and taken on critics of its policies. “I believe that a number of leaders in the hemisphere who have taken potshots at the United States are not finding much of an audience anymore, and I think that shows that the way we’re handling our engagement is being well received,” she told reporters this week.

She did not say which leaders she was referring to, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales have been particularly outspoken. Neither Venezuela nor Bolivia was to be represented at the meeting, part of the “Pathways to Prosperity” initiative started by former President George W. Bush and expanded by the Obama administration. The project, which now has 14 member countries, aims to ensure that economic gains from development are used to close gaps between Latin America’s rich and poor.

While citing U.S. efforts in Honduras and earthquake-stricken Haiti and enhanced counternarcotics cooperation throughout the region, Clinton said many challenges remain. “We’re going to be asking more of a lot of our friends,” she said. “I mean, a number of them are not respecting democratic institutions. A number of them are not taking strong enough stands against the erosion of the rule of law because of the pressure from drug traffickers.”

“And a number of them don’t do enough to invest in their own people,” Clinton said. “Their tax rates are abysmally low, they don’t really ask much of themselves in order to produce for the outcomes they say they seek.”

Nonetheless, she said the U.S. was not interested in preaching to Latin America. “It’s a realistic and respectful relationship,” Clinton said.

Clinton will wrap up her current overseas travel on Friday in Guatemala at a meeting of Central American leaders where Honduras will be the primary focus. She already has visited Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

Another thing that Obama blew by outsourcing the health care reform legistlation is that neither pro-choice nor pro-life sides are happy with it, and each side is taking the bill hostage.

Heh, heh.

huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/bart-stupak-abortion-lang_n_485341.html

Bart Stupak: Abortion Language In Health Care Bill Is A Must
==================

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who has long raised objections to health care reform based on his anti-abortion stance, said on Thursday that he and several other House members plan to dig in their heels again and may not vote for the final bill.

“We’re not going to vote for this bill with that kind of language,” Stupak said on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” a reference to language included in the Senate health bill that Stupak and 11 other Democrats say is not tough enough when it comes to limiting federal funding for abortions.

“I want to see health care pass,” Stupak said. “We must have health care but, boy, there are some principles and beliefs that some of us are not going to pass.

“We’re prepared to take the responsibility. I mean, I’ve been catching it ever since last fall. Let’s face it, I want to see health care. But we’re not going to bypass some principles and beliefs that we feel strongly about.”

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) is releasing the names of 37 Democratic members of the House his office is targeting in an effort to switch their vote on health care reform.

The Virginia Republican, in a memo release from his office, pinned the GOP’s prospects of derailing reform on convincing three of those 37 members to switch their vote from a yea to a nay. If Republican leadership secures those votes, it would reverse the narrow margin by which health care reform initially passed the House of Representatives.

“Millions of Americans have made clear their opposition to the Democrat take-over of our nation’s health care system. Together with my Whip Team, I have identified 37 Democrats who – we believe – can be persuaded to vote against a final health care agreement. Because each of these 37 Democrats voted for the House bill, we only need to turn 3 votes to prevent a final agreement from passing,” reads the Cantor memo. “If we can convince enough of these 37 Members (along with the 39 Democrats who already voted no) to reconsider and switch their position on the bill, I know that we can defeat this government take-over of our health care before it becomes law.”

While the number of needed defections seems small, Cantor’s gambit remains something of a long shot. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) is widely believed to have the votes needed to get the legislation through her chamber. And it is possible that some of the 39 Democratic lawmakers who opposed health care reform in the first vote will switch their votes in the second go-round — certainly if the legislation more closely resembles the Senate’s version.

Nevertheless, Cantor lists the names of the representatives targeted by his office. And in what resembles a fairly aggressive strategy for a whip, he highlights the policy positions that he believes puts these members in play. The Virginia Republican writes:

ABORTION

“If the House-passed Stupak-Pitts language is weakened in the final agreement, the votes of the following pro-life House Democrats could be in play:

While the House and Senate take different approaches to cutting funding for the Medicare Advantage program, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida inserted language in the Senate version of the bill that effectively ensures that seniors in Florida (and potentially a few other areas) will be protected from these cuts. Will these House Members, each of whom has a significant Medicare Advantage population in their district, vote for a final bill that cuts Medicare benefits for the seniors they represent, while seniors in Florida are protected from such cuts? Mitchell, Harry (AZ) Giffords, Gabrielle (AZ) Cardoza, Dennis (CA) Schiff, Adam (CA) Moore, Dennis (KS) Oberstar, Jim (MN) Maffei, Daniel (NY) Driehaus, Steve (OH) Kaptur, Marcy (OH) Space, Zach (OH) Schrader, Kurt (OR) Dahlkemper, Kathleen (PA) Carney, Chris (PA) Cuellar, Henry (TX) Smith, Adam (WA) Mollohan, Alan (WV) Kind, Ron (WI) Kagen, Steve (WI)
BUDGET
Both the House and Senate health care bills expand coverage, in part, by expanding Medicaid and asking states to pick up a portion of the cost. Most states are facing their own budget crisis, however, and are being forced to make reductions in current services and thus may not be able to afford the cost of expanding Medicaid.
[SNIP]

Potential House vote switchers from states that, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, are being forced to cut education funding but which will also be saddled with millions of dollars in new Medicaid costs are:

Mrs. Love your Soros stuff…..maybe he’ll finally get his too….seems like shit is being served up to the bad folks regularly….he would be a big prize….and one that I would personally like to see happen! One could say a thorough cleaning is taking place!

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try, try again.
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Or, perhaps, trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result–which was Einstein’s theory of insanity. If I were the GOP I would be offering to let them switch parties if they want to in order to avoid repercussions.

Gonzo: here is the link you asked about. It is from the center for individual freedom. It was sent to me as an attachment for the Eagle Forum. So I had it confused. Sorry if my mistake created extra work for you.

The US Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether a group of hedge fund maestros colluded to place massive bets against the euro.

The probe centers on whether funds run by David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, George Soros’ Soros Fund Management, Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital and John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. conspired to help push the value of the euro down during “idea meetings” that were held over the past several weeks.
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This was entirely predictable. Whether it is provable or not however is another matter–particularly with the US Justice Department under Eric Holder involved. Here is the introduction to Chapter 2 of a 13 part white paper which Confloyd and Mrs. Smith helped write on him last year. It is pertinent to this issue.
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Dear Reader: this chapter will provide critical insight into the kind of man George Soros is. We do not need Dr. Freud to help us understand him. Soros has already told us who he is in the Croft interview and the link is provided below. He is a man who sees the world in terms of markets, as opposed to human beings. His sense of detachment is chilling. As you will see Soros is the largest currency trader in the world. He used that leverage to crash the British Pound in 1992 and to precipitate the Asian Crisis in 1997. Some have suggested that he triggered the Wall Street collapse of 2008 as well, but I found no credible evidence to support that allegation. The information below is based on various sources, but the most important one is the in depth intelligence report in the link is provided below. This report was written in the late 1990s and there is nothing more current available. However, it is material and probative because the same financial interests that backed him then are undoubtedly backing him now, as he moves to build a New World Order for their benefit—not ours.—WB
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If I were to write an update, I would stress the fact that Soros is unhappy with Obama now. Why? Because he more than any other single individual put Obama where he is. And, Obama has not delivered. You could make a case, and I have, that Soros continues to control Obama inasmuch as Obama is still pursuing the broad outlines of the Soros agenda at the expense of the jobs agenda of the American People and is siding with capitalists against the middle class. But as a friend of mine who is a communications expert told me this morning, she no longer believes Soros controls him. Soros wanted him to move even further to the left, wanted special drawing rights, greater access to China through Obama, major wealth transfer to the third world and none of that has materialized. So Soros, a sociopath, has been thrown under the bus by an even bigger sociopath–by her lights. Hence, he has gone back to his old wicked wicked ways.

I don’t get it, Fox is still mum on the headline that Megan Kelly from Fox came out and said that John Roberts is stepping down as head of the Supreme Court? She came back on and said it was’t true but they had a reporter on hand to get the real truth.
Now Megan came back on and said the senator from Utah would not be at the WH tonight for the gathering to garner votes for the HC bill. Something is fishy, Fox has been told to shut up and others say it was on Drudge. I think the idea of Obama selling Judgeship pist off John Roberts…but I think it was squashed quickly. Just my gut feeling.

The longer Soros is allowed to carry on the way he has been- manipulating the currency markets while betting against them and in the end crippling third world economies and raking in huge sums of money at his pleasure; the harder it will be, if not impossible, to corner and prevent his Machiavellian power from taking over the world economy while destroying ours.

I vote we call you Lois Lane, cub reporter for the Daily Planet reporting to us from the city of Metropolis.

You, remind me of LL. In the comics when she sniffed something happening she would corral photog, Jimmie Olson to accompany her on a hot lead because she knew Perry White would want pictures along with her (hard to believe) scooped story.

jbstonesfan, Don’t you imagine that its because of that darn Soros, we all know he hates the Jews. I just can’t believe the amount of anti-semitism that is going on now. What about this law to stop circumcision…..thats a Jewish thing for sure.

More than anything else, Barack Obama’s political rise was defined by the promise that he would usher in an era of post-partisanship after the bitter divisiveness that scarred Washington during the Bush years.

“The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into red states and blue states,” Obama famously lamented when he burst onto the national scene during his speech to the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

On the night he was elected Senator that November, when Republicans retained control of all branches of government, Obama said that his “understanding of the Senate is that you need 60 votes to get something significant to happen, which means that Democrats and Republicans have to ask the question, do we have the will to move an American agenda forward, not a Democratic or Republican agenda forward?”

In 2006, he tried to disabuse his “fellow progressives” of the “notion that we should function sort of like Karl Rove where we identify our core base, we throw ’em red meat, we get a 50-plus-one victory.”

While running for president in 2007, he told the Concord Monitor that “We are not going to pass universal health care with a 50-plus one strategy.”

Instead, candidate Obama talked about building a “movement for change” in which citizens get organized and take an active role in agitating their lawmakers.

But any chance Obama had of living up to his well-honed image as a post-partisan leader was tossed aside on Wednesday, as the president urged Democrats in Congress to disregard public opinion and ram through his health care bill using a parliamentary maneuver that doesn’t require bipartisan support.

As it turns out, employing Rovian tactics in the pursuit of his liberal agenda is no vice.

In the past week, President Obama staged a series of what historian Daniel Boorstin dubbed “pseudo-events,” from a televised health care summit to the release of a letter offering token policy gestures to Republicans. The process culminated with the inevitable announcement that he would attempt to enact the most sweeping legislation since the Great Society with the once-poisonous “50-plus-one” strategy.

In his remarks, Obama pushed the argument that using the reconciliation process, which is intended for budgetary matters and not for sweeping legislation, is okay because they’d only be using the procedure to make changes, not to pass the whole bill. “Reform has already passed the House with a majority,” Obama said. “It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes.” The problem is, those were two different bills. The House won’t be able to pass the Senate bill unless it’s changed, and thus passing the underlying overhaul of the nation’s health care system is still contingent upon the use of reconciliation.

Obama also tried to suggest that there was nothing out of the ordinary about this use of reconciliation, saying that health care legislation “deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform, that was cast on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, that was used for COBRA health coverage for the unemployed, and, by the way, for both Bush tax cuts — all of which had to pass Congress with nothing more than a simple majority.”

Yet in virtually all of those cases, the programs passed with strong bipartisan support — welfare reform passed with 78 votes in the Senate, S-CHIP passed with 85 votes and COBRA passed by a simple voice vote. The first round of Bush tax cuts in 2001 garnered 58 votes — but 12 of those votes were from Democrats. Even the much more contentious second round of Bush tax cuts in 2003 received two Democratic votes before passing with 50 (plus Vice President Dick Cheney).

But comparisons to the tax legislation isn’t really fair, because the tax cuts expire at the end of this year, while Obama wants to use reconciliation to create a permanent new entitlement that would effectively put the government in charge of one-sixth of the nation’s economy.

Obama’s use of reconciliation is also much more likely to be explosive because the underlying bill it is being used to pass is overwhelmingly opposed by the public. That was not the case in prior instances of reconciliation.

As USA Today reported on August 3, 1996, Clinton was forced to sign welfare reform over fierce objections from liberals because it was so popular:

“Clinton conceded that the bill has “flaws” but said he’d sign it. With Election Day just three months away, he can read public opinion polls. They show that regardless of the (liberal) outcry, about eight of 10 Americans want welfare reform.”

When CBS asked Americans in April 2001, “Do you favor or oppose George W. Bush’s $1.6 trillion tax cut for the country over the next 10 years?” supporters outnumbered opponents by a 51 percent to 37 percent margin. In June 2003, a Gallup poll found Americans supported the second round of cuts by a 47 percent to 43 percent plurality, while Harris found that 50 percent thought the tax cut was a “good thing” compared to 35 percent who said “bad thing.”

Yet polls show a majority of Americans oppose the health care bill and a CNN poll released last week found that just 25 percent of Americans want Congress to pass something similar to the two existing bills. A Gallup survey taken last week found that Americans oppose using the reconciliation procedure to pass a health care bill by a 52 percent to 39 percent margin. There has been a sustained national outcry against this legislation that first manifested itself in town hall meetings last August and culminated with the election of Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts in January.

Yet Obama, whose entire candidacy was built around the idea that change must begin from the bottom up, is now pursuing a top down strategy.

“It is a complicated issue,” Obama said of health care on Wednesday, continuing, “it easily lends itself to demagoguery and political gamesmanship, and misrepresentation and misunderstanding.” And he observed that “The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future.”

Evidently, according to Obama, Americans only oppose his favored proposals because they aren’t smart enough to understand them, and are incapable of looking out for their own interests and future.

In a plea to vulnerable Democrats and a tacit acknowledgement that his signature domestic initiative had become toxic to his own party, Obama said, “I do not know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right.”

Within a matter of weeks, we’ll know whether the Obama and Congressional leaders will be able to convince enough Democrats to take suicide votes and advance national health care across the finish line. But win or lose, Obama is now destined to be a divider, not a uniter.

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 12 mins ago
WASHINGTON – House Democratic leaders are pushing to finish far-reaching health legislation and hold a climactic vote in the next three weeks, aiming to overcome reluctance from rank-and-file lawmakers. But they conceded Thursday they may not meet President Barack Obama’s challenge for swift action.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the Democrats would like to get a final vote by Congress’ Easter break, which begins March 29. But he also said “the world doesn’t fall apart” if that timeline isn’t met — a nod to the many missed deadlines that have characterized the health overhaul effort so far.

Democratic leaders are contending with a host of undecided lawmakers who want to see the fine print before making a decision. Hoyer said final language and a cost estimate should come back from the Congressional Budget Office by the end of next week.

“At this point in time we don’t have a bill,” Hoyer said. “It’s a little difficult to count votes if you don’t have a bill.”

Separately, more than a dozen House Democrats were meeting with Obama at the White House Thursday afternoon. Among the group were lawmakers who voted against the legislation last year. Obama is leaving for an Asia trip March 18, and the White House would like to see action before then, something Hoyer said was “doable,” even as he noted the bill still hadn’t been completed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “I feel very confident about how we go forward.”

“Every legislative lift is a heavy lift around here,” Pelosi said.

At its core, the legislation still is largely along the lines Obama has long sought. It would extend coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans while cracking down on insurance company practices such as denying policies on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions. An insurance exchange would be created in which private companies could sell policies to consumers.

Much of the cost of the legislation, nearly $1 trillion over a decade, would be financed by cuts in future Medicare payments and higher payroll taxes on individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples more than $250,000.

In his latest changes Obama added some Republican ideas raised at last week’s bipartisan summit, including renewed efforts on changes in medical malpractice and rooting out waste and fraud from the system.

The House passed health overhaul legislation by a narrow 220-215 vote in November, but since then several Democrats have defected or left the House. To avoid a filibuster in the Senate that Democrats can’t defeat, Obama is now pushing the House to approve the Senate’s version of the bill, along with a package of changes to fix elements of the Senate bill that House Democrats don’t like, including a special Medicaid deal for Nebraska and a tax on high-value insurance plans that is opposed by organized labor.

Obama made a closing argument for action Wednesday, saying, “I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote.”

The legislative maneuvering ahead is tricky and Democratic leaders are facing discontent from lawmakers who’ve taken a political beating over the past year of corrosive debate. Also, as many as a dozen anti-abortion Democrats are threatening to defect because of the Senate bill’s more permissive language on federal funding of the procedure.

The outcome will depend on lawmakers like Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., a first-term congresswoman in a divided district who overcame initial qualms to vote for the legislation in November, only to come under attack from Republicans over the decision. Titus said Thursday she’s undecided.

“I think what’s happened in my district is, there’s a great deal of uncertainty,” Titus said. “Some people still think there’s death panels.”

Titus said she’s trying to make the decision based on what’s best for her district, leaving political considerations aside, but lawmakers who switch from voting “yes” to “no” — or vice versa — risk being labeled flip-floppers.

“I think it’ll be very hard to explain back home why people who voted for the House bill are voting against this legislation, especially if you sit in the center to right of the caucus. The Senate bill has only moved to the middle,” said Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

In his speech Wednesday, Obama called for an “up-or-down vote” within weeks under rules denying Republicans the ability to block the bill with a filibuster.

Lawmakers were almost finished merging House and Senate versions of sweeping overhaul legislation when a special election in January cost Democrats their filibuster-proof Senate majority, throwing the effort into disarray.

Thirty-nine Democrats voted “no” on the House bill, and Pelosi will probably need some of those to switch to make up for votes lost from anti-abortion Democrats and others.

“We’re not going to vote for the bill with that language in there,” Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., leader of the anti-abortion Democrats in the House, said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“I want to see health care, but we’re not going to bypass some principles that we believe strongly about,” Stupak said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, appearing on the same show, said she hoped that “when the bill is in its final form and people have a chance to look at it, I think they will understand that this bill does not change the status quo on abortion.”

“There will be no federal financing of abortion,” she said.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said Obama and House Democratic leaders are asking their members to “hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them.” Reid is the Senate Democratic leader. Alexander said there is no guarantee the Senate would pass the reconciliation bill, with Republicans figuring out how to derail it.

Alexander told reporters Thursday that if the bill passed there would be an instant effort to repeal it and it would define every political race in the country this fall.

I watch/listen to Fox all day until late at night most days, but I am shocked they’ve had nothing on the station about Republican Roy Asburn getting arrested last night outside a gay bar for a DUI. What’s wrong with those repubs, they seem to get caught keeping their true identity in the closet. LOL

Romney just ripped his pants with me again….just heard him say he did not compare his wife to Hillary Clinton in any way….he will learn that he just dissed 18million people that could have voted for him….oh well….if he’s that stupid he doesn’t need to be POTUS!

What some call a fall from grace others might call rising to his own level of morality, good ol’ blinkey . . .

(P.S. To get this I had to go though MSNBC porkchop hill and there on the left side of the page was Chuckie Cheeseball Todd, with his scragely, pre-pubescient gotee and his eyes which look like holes in the snow. Hi Chuckie–bye Chuckie . .
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GRAND JURY TO INDICT EDWARDS

Photo by: (c)The National Enquirer
The ultimate fall from grace, a Federal grand jury is about to indict John Edwards, The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.

In another shocker, close sources say Edwards’ estranged wife Elizabeth could help send the former presidential candidate to jail!

Edwards, the disgraced two-time Presidential loser, is being investigated by the feds, including the FBI and IRS, for possible campaign violations related to paying his mistress Rielle Hunter.

The grand jury has been meeting since April 2009, and insiders say an indictment is imminent.

“John is terrified that he’s going to be indicted,” a friend told The ENQUIRER.

“While he believes he’s done nothing illegal in trying to hide his extramarital affair with Rielle and their daughter, he thinks the Feds are going to make an example of him.”

For the FULL STORY with ALL the details you won’t find anywhere else – RUN – don’t walk – to get the new issue of The ENQUIRER before it sells out – on sale NOW!

(P.S. Take note NBC, CNN et al. When you are running the kind of dumbed down scandal sheets you are–that is the way to get the public to buy it. Why pretend you are journalists. Nobody believes you, and to pretend otherwise is hypocrisy.

Michele Bachmann calls for independent investigation into White House
Posted by therightscoop in Politics on Mar 3rd, 2010 | Comments

Michele Bachmann asks “What in the world is going on in the White House?” and then proceeds call for an independent investigation into the White House for offering a judgeship to the brother of a member of Congress and then asking that member for their vote on health care. Of course Alan Grayson is having none of that, calling it a “weapon of mass distraction” and a tangent. Bachmann responds that corruption isn’t a tangent and doubles down on the seriousness of corruption.

Someone should tell George Soros and Zbig they are doing a crappy job running our country….I heard John Stossal is doing an expose on why we should legalize marijuana and all drugs…..so now the dems think its a good idea to try a legalize marijuana to save the country….Do they not know that they have single handedly managed to inflame the far right wing nuts…..and NOW they want to legalize dope….how stupid are these guys anyway???